If a blog post gets a lot of views then I’m happy and if it doesn’t then I’m happy. Why? Because I write for myself pageviews haven’t been the goal.
Part of me is intrigued by traffic patterns. Understanding reading behavior and data is helpful. I can understand the mindset behind basing goals on pageviews. Right now that just hasn’t been a focus for me. If I was more strategic I would actually do something with a lot of this data.
Anyways, if you were still interested I wanted to share the Top 5 Most Viewed Posts of 2016.
And, if it makes sense, I’ll provide a bit of context and perhaps an explanation for the views.
Heads up that these states came from Jetpack though Google Analytics shows similar data.
Most Viewed Posts in 2016:
1: X-Card Technique : How To Build Any Habit
This post got the most views because I linked back to it from a guest post I did over at SimpleProgrammer.com. It just shows the power of guest posting and getting your content in front of a new audience. I don’t link back to this site often from Simple Programer but I will from now on when it’s appropriate.
This was a post from October 2015 but it still had the most views this year. It’s a super short post. Pretty much just an image and a quote. It gets so much traffic because it’s on the first page of Google when you search for “Daily Practice Chart”.
Top post from my Daily December experiment. I was completely shocked by the results of this post. The first write up was almost a throwaway. Seems like a lot of people that follow me on Facebook want to know about life in Eugene.
4: 7 Benefits Of Gated Deployments
This is another older post from 2015. This post consistently gets views every month. The numbers are small but add up overtime.
Another post benefiting from organic search traffic. How to test a toaster is a common interview question given to manual software testers. Most of the views came from people looking for help with that question.
Top Referrers in 2016
Thought it would also be helpful to list the top 5 places that refer people to the blog. This is also information form Jetpack.com
- Organic Search
- Simple Programmer
- Github
Final Note
The reality is that more than half of the top-performing post in 2016 came from previous years. Only 2 post that made the list were from this year. Evergreen content for the win! Showing up consistently is for the long term is the name of the game.